


the primacy of reality

by crownsandbirds



Series: sadist's lullaby [7]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Character Death, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Insomnia, M/M, Post-Canon, Sex Mentions, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, just listen riko's dead kevin's grieving and andreil is pissed off, tagging is so hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-17 15:05:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13661502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownsandbirds/pseuds/crownsandbirds
Summary: "'He didn’t even - he tortured you, Kevin. Is this some fucked-up variation of a Stockholm syndrome?I don’t get it - I can’t.' Neil opens his hands, palms up, unable to offer any resemblance of comprehension with the wound in the three of them so fresh."Riko Moriyama is dead. Kevin would rather he wasn't. No one gets it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "Let’s not talk about it, let’s just not talk.
> 
> Not because I don’t believe it, not because I want it any different, but I’m always saving
> 
> and you’re always owing and I’m tired of asking to settle the debt.
> 
> Don’t bother.
> 
> You never mean it anyway, not really, and it only makes me that much more ashamed."
> 
> \- Richard Siken, Wishbone

“You’re pathetic.”

“I suppose I am.” Kevin laughs, and the bitterness of it prods at something dark inside Neil. 

“He didn’t even - he  _ tortured _ you, Kevin. Is this some fucked-up variation of a Stockholm syndrome?”

No answer. It pisses Neil off even more than any answer would. Kevin has taken to the half-silent treatment after his attempts at explaining ended in screaming arguments. 

“I don’t get it - I can’t.” Neil opens his hands, palms up, unable to offer any resemblance of comprehension with the wound in the three of them so fresh. “I get him loving you, even if I don’t understand why anyone would break the hand of someone they love as much as they say they do. I kind of get it because he was a sick psycho and who knows how his mind worked. But why - Kevin, why would you say you loved him?” his voice breaks into something full of resentment and hurt. “He didn’t deserve it, he never did.”

“And who deserves it?” Kevin bites out, flaring up instantly like he has been doing since forever whenever Riko is insulted. “You? Andrew? None of us get ground to judge him. And, just, I hope you know - I’ll never love anyone as much as I loved him. Not even the two of you.” 

Neil feels that like a blade twisting inside his guts. “Why are you like this?  _ Why? _ ”

Kevin shifts around on the bed, turns on his side to regard Neil with his dark, considering eyes. His eyelids are heavy, his fingers weak where they grasp at the blankets, and he probably wouldn’t be able to get up if his life depended on it. “I can’t explain, and you can’t understand. So you either kick me out or you wait.”

“Wait for  _ what _ ?”

“Who knows. Wait for me, I guess.”

It can't be considered a decision when one of the alternatives is impossible and unacceptable, and Neil can't make Kevin  _ understand _ that. He takes a deep, almost angry breath. “I waited  _ years _ for you, you asshole. You  _ know _ I’ll wait more. If you don't know, you're stupider than I thought.” he turns back to leave, his hand on the doorknob; he doesn’t look back when he says, clear and unhesitating, “When you come back, just make it worth my time.”

“...I will.”

“Good.”

"Won't make me promise?" he means for it to sound sarcastic, but he's too exhausted for that.

"You're not Andrew." Neil reminds him quietly, like he barely wants to get the words out. Kevin’s not Andrew with his obsession with keeping to his word, so his promises don’t ever mean as much; that’s a simple truth.

"I'm not Andrew and neither of you is Riko, so we'll just have to deal with being disappointments." 

"Which is barely a surprise for any of us." 

Neil leaves, shuts the door behind him - the room is again engulfed in darkness, and Kevin lets out a relieved breath.

-

When Neil comes back the next day, he brings food, water, and a harsh, "He's dead."

He doesn’t bring Andrew. Kevin doesn’t know how to feel about that. He doesn’t know how to feel about anything; but he has barely seen Andrew in days, despite living in the same place as him, and he finds his constant mental images of Riko’s smirk and Riko’s serene face at his coffin being momentarily replaced by the memory he has of Andrew’s eyes staring at him emotionlessly, seeing through his soul and being undisturbed by what they find.

"Good memory you got there," he says at last, reaches for the water bottle to take a big sip.

"Kevin. He's  _ dead _ .” Neil’s hands form fists at his sides as if he wants to punch the reality of Riko’s death into Kevin. “Dead and buried."

"If you don't stop talking, you'll keep him company in hell." his threat is empty; Neil won’t ever stop talking, and he can’t lay a finger on him. 

Neil knows. "I won't. You're too much of a coward."

"Again, great memory you got there."

"It was either you or him, you know."

"I'd rather it was me,” he confesses, something he hasn’t been able to say even to himself, and it weighs on the back of his throat, the last word barely coming out at all. He hears Neil making a wounded, insulted sound, but he doesn’t let his answer come through as he continues, “He was better at everything. There was a reason he was number one."

" _ Kevin, what the hell are you saying _ ?!” Neil has to dig his nails into his palms to force himself to bring down his tone of voice, because even now he knows at a very instinctive part of his being that Kevin gets fidgety and scared when people yell at him. “He tortured me, he made Andrew be raped, he almost killed Jean. He was  _ destroying your life _ while he was alive." 

"And he's destroying it even more being dead." a single, warm tear runs down Kevin's face, gets caught on the corner of his lips, the exact spot Riko loved to kiss. Kevin can feel it now, see him standing up on his tiptoes and threading his fingers through Kevin’s hair to bring his head down and press a kiss on the corner of his mouth. He was so small, delicate all over, easy to pick up and carry around; but his hands and mind had such an endlessly deadly creativity to them it brought Kevin a nauseated amusement to see what they were capable of coming up with - the same hands that reached out for his, the hands that gripped at his shoulders and at his waist nearly softly at times.

"He  _ broke your hand _ ." Neil’s knees are slightly bent, his body tilted forward as if he wants to physically fight Kevin. It’s a reminder of how strong he is, how unmoveable, of how much he’s willing to do, how powerless he feels. It makes Kevin want to either fight him or kiss him. 

On other days, he might have risen to the challenge. Now, he just weakly dismisses his anger. It’s not his to keep. "There are things that hurt far more than a hand when they're broken." 

 

-   
  
When Neil comes out of the room, shaken and angry and resentful down to his bones, Andrew is silent and apathetic as always. The sight of him lounging on their couch ( _ their _ couch), arms crossed, eyes staring forward, is so familiar it settles something in the atmosphere around them.   
  
Andrew glances at him.  _ You’re angry _ , his eyes seem to say.    
  
“He’s impossible to talk to.” Neil grinds out, throws himself on the couch, keeping a calculated distance from Andrew so he can choose between leaving him alone or reaching out. "Every time I  _ look _ at him I can see he's thinking about that fucking psycho, and it makes me so angry-"   
  
He cuts himself off when Andrew wraps his fingers around his ankle. The solid warmth of the gesture brings him back to reality and blows away at the tension on his shoulders.    
  
"I don't know what to do," says Neil, relaxing back on the cushions. "I don't know what he wants us to do."   
  
Andrew shakes his head after a few seconds of deliberating silence. "Neither does he." his thumb is caressing Neil's skin in slow circles.   
  
"I just - I miss him. I want our Kevin back."    
  
After that, it's quiet for a short while. Neil doesn't want to say anything anymore and Andrew seems content to keep his fingers around Neil's ankle, as a reminder of what they have, what they worked for.    
  
"Keep him alive," Andrew speaks at last, stretching like a cat before flopping back on the couch. "That's all. Keep him alive and breathing and safe and he'll work out the rest. He survived when he got his hand broken, he'll survive this."   
  
-   
  
Kevin remembers the first time he got Riko to make noise during sex. He remembers placing his hands on the other's knees and spreading his legs wider, and thrusting deeper, and whispering, "Trust me. Let me hear you."    
  
Riko's mouth stayed stubbornly closed for a few seconds, and then: a whimper, almost impossible to hear, a moan, breathy and beautiful, and Kevin's name at last, mumbled like a forbidden prayer, over and over again.  Kevin’s heart hurt in his chest from how badly he loved that boy under him, and he had to hide his face on his neck to stop himself from saying anything that would get him kicked out of bed.   
  
Kevin also remembers his first time with Neil and Andrew. How responsive Neil was, how eager and willing, how much he immersed himself in the touches and the sounds and the wanting, how his lips parted to let out what sounded like music. How Andrew calmly controlled the two of them, with clear words and almost tentative hands and his "yes or no?" that made everything so much more real.    
  
He shifts around on the bed, wraps the blankets more tightly around himself. If he was the dead one, Riko could've comfortably buried himself in his jackets and sweaters, much bigger than his small body. But Riko's dead, and Kevin is so much taller than he was, so he just presses his old sweater to his face, inhales the scent of the cologne he always wore, and starts to think about tomorrow.   
  
-   
  
Neil wakes up to the smell of chocolate.    
  
He carefully leaves the bed, so as to not wake Andrew up, and tip toes towards the kitchen, his sleepy mind not catching up to what is happening before he sees it: Kevin stirring something at the stove, shirtless with his hair a mess. In normal days, Neil would walk up to him and wrap his arms around his middle and say something before kissing the space between his shoulder blades; now, he just knocks on the doorframe to let him know he's there and sits on a chair at the table.   
  
"'Morning." Kevin says, and turns off the stove before reaching down to take something out of the oven.   
  
"Mm." Neil rests his head on his hands and watches Kevin's careful movements. "What are you making?"   
  
"A cake. Chocolate cake."    
  
"A  _ cake _ ?" Neil chuckles, surprised. "Since when do you cook? Or bake, for that matter?"   
  
"A while. Few years."    
  
Kevin's answers are short, but not unwelcoming. He sounds like he wants to talk as he pours the icing on top of the cake, even if he doesn't know what to say.   
  
"How did you even learn?"   
  
A beat. Kevin takes a deep, deep breath, puts the pan in the sink. "Riko - Riko liked to make food. He specially liked baking. He didn't let me help, but I watched him do it often enough to learn." he opens the faucet to fill the dirty pan with water so it's easier to wash later. "This was his favorite thing to make. But I changed his recipe a bit. I used more chocolate than he did, since Andrew likes everything sweeter. I hope it tastes okay."    
  
Listening to Riko's name makes Neil's ears bleed, but he decides he can handle it if he gets to watch his boyfriend against the soft light of the morning, talking to him properly after days. "I'm sure it does. It smells amazing, anyway."   
  
Kevin turns towards him at that - he looks open and sincere, like he's been broken and pieced back together. "I missed you. The two of you. I'm - I'm back now. Maybe not completely, but - enough."   
  
Neil almost tears up. "Good. I - we missed you too."   
  
Andrew arrives, blonde soft hair sticking up everywhere, regards the both of them with his analytical gaze. He nods a good morning to Neil, before walking up to Kevin.   
  
He raises his hand. "Yes or no?"   
  
Kevin takes a shuddering breath. "Yes, Andrew - yes."   
  
He takes Kevin's face between his hands and brings him down a bit so he can take a long look at him. His eyes look brighter in the sunlight, almost impossibly so, and when he lets go at last and goes to sit at the table, Kevin's shoulders are relaxed and his jaw isn't set anymore, and he looks like he just found out the secret of feeling the strongest pain and living on regardless of it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "riko was wrong about so many things, but he was right about that. it is like being underwater, kevin reasons dimly as he maneuvers out of neil's arms, trying his best not to wake him up. slow, and dream-like and barely real. 
> 
> he hasn't slept properly since the funeral." 
> 
> kevin has insomnia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "je n'ai plus de vie et même mon lit  
> se transforme en quai de gare  
> quand tu t'en vas."
> 
> (je suis malade - lara fabian)

kevin can't sleep. 

one might say this is no surprise, for someone as traumatized and anxious and full of issues as he is; he supposes it should be no surprise, it should come with the package of being him, but it is, and it didn't come in the package until now.

he hasn't dealt with insomnia throughout his life - with his mother, his life was peaceful enough for him to fall into bed without complications; with riko, everything was so much, so demanding and endless, that falling into bed in the bedroom they shared was a blessing for his sore, exhausted body and sometimes all he could think about during the day (a second thought to the symphony of riko always playing at the background of his wrecked conscious mind). with the foxes, when he wasn't worn-out from a game or from night practice, he was drunk out of his mind, so sleep hadn't been an issue there either.

he remembers vaguely something riko used to say, that "having insomnia is like being underwater". he couldn't understand, at the time, or even offer sympathy, being someone to whom sleep always came easily. he could only pray for the rare, blissful nights when riko  _ did _ manage to sleep and didn't drag him out of bed at eerie hours in the night to torture jean out of his slumber. 

he remembers the other nights too, his hands slippery with jean's blood, riko far clumsier and bordering on nonsensical, so unlike his sharp and composed daylight persona. the wounds less precise, the cuts messier, jean waking up confused and disoriented with riko's knife already under his skin. kevin breathing for the first time when riko left the room to shower, and then kneeling down beside the bed to dirty his own guilty hands and patch jean up as best as he could when exhaustion was still gnawing at the corner of his eyes and the tip of his fingers.

he hated riko's chronic insomnia, as much as he hated his issues with not eating and his daddy issues, nearly as much as he hated his sociopathic tendencies.  

_ you don't get to say that,  _ jean snarled once when he'd made the mistake of complaining about it.  _ you love riko, then you love everything about him. it's all or nothing with people like him. _

he supposes jean was right, but jean has always detested his guts, so maybe he was saying that to send kevin into another anxious spiral of guilt, which, again, he supposes he deserves anyway. 

riko was wrong about so many things, but he was right about that.  _ it is like being underwater,  _ kevin reasons dimly as he maneuvers out of neil's arms, trying his best not to wake him up.  _ slow, and dream-like and barely real. _

he hasn't slept since the funeral. 

his insomnia is weirdly methodical - he always wakes up after his first dream has ended. like a person who finishes a book and shuts it close with certainty, he wakes up with a jolt immediately after the strange plots of his nightmares end. it's not like riko's; he remembers riko rarely slept at all, stayed awake tossing and turning in bed until five in the morning, when he would inevitably pull kevin from under the covers, as precise as an old clock tetsuji used to keep in his office.  

he tiptoes out of the room, shuts the door behind himself as quietly as possible. he notices, in a daze, he didn't see andrew on the bed when he left, but he guesses he went to the other bedroom in the middle of the night, probably feeling overexposed, which wouldn't be unusual. 

_ like being underwater. _

it's the exhaustion, kevin thinks. there's something about being an insomniac. one is never fully rested, never glowing with a good night of sleep. makeup artists used to spend time working on the skin under riko's dark eyes, to get rid of the ever-present, sickly purple circles there. during the worst weeks, riko dozed off during classes, lost his grasp on english and on his perfect toothpaste smile, fumbled around for words, mumbled in japanese. 

_ why am i always thinking about him. _

he tries to figure out what to do. now that he's out of bed, he will hardly go back if he isn't ready to fall asleep. he goes to the bathroom to pee. the light above his head is too bright, manically so, nearly dystopian. as he washes his hands -  _ why does everything sound so loud in the middle of the night  _ \- he reasons he can't watch exy games or plan strategies and training routines. he's not awake enough for that. he could read, but that sounds like so much effort right now.

he envies neil so much right now. neil and his routine of going out to run, his penchant for taking short, kitten-like naps throughout the day whenever possible, his ability to doze off wherever. the way his pretty face relaxes when he's asleep, his lips slightly parted and his fingers wrapped tightly around the blankets. the way he wakes up unsteady on his feet, glowing and beautiful, ready to be held in kevin's arms and make a cup of coffee and start his day. 

his body aches all over with the desire to go back to bed and pull neil closer and fall asleep, mouth pressed to his nape. 

he suddenly understands riko better now, his constant, explosive irritation at absolutely everything that mildly displeased him, his need for physical contact in the mornings, the moments when he lost track of the conversation or trailed off in the middle of a sentence and simply stared out of the window. he feels lonely, desperately so, like the entire world has turned its back on him. his eyelids are heavy, but not enough to put him to bed. 

how did that  _ fight club  _ quote go again.  _ with insomnia, nothing's real. everything's far away. everything's just a copy of a copy of a copy.  _

he understands the movie better now as well. he feels on the verge of developing a second personality.

all of a sudden, he hears a noise; a scruff of feet against the floor, a little sigh. everything's so eerily quiet, he picks it up immediately, as easily as he picks up the scent of cigarette smoke. 

he doesn't think, doesn't put a and b together, just turns the corner and walks towards the noise, to see andrew staring out of the apartment balcony, a cigarette dangling between his fingers. 

"can't sleep?" andrew asks, in the softest voice kevin has ever heard him use.

"mm. yeah," he answers and moves to stand beside him, look down at the empty street, the yellow glow of the streetlamps. "you?"

"nightmare," andrew says before taking another drag of the cigarette. "i'll go back to bed in a bit."

the rail under the palm of his hands is cold with the night air. "how often do you..." he trails off, too tired to continue, but andrew gets it. 

"often enough. used to happen more, less now."

kevin can picture it; andrew never sleeps wrapped up in anyone, so it's probably easy for him to slip out, come out for a smoke, and then either go back to bed with them or make himself comfortable on the other bedroom.  

"that why this is the first time we're doing this?"

another drag - the smoke goes up peacefully, careless of the boys. "you haven't had insomnia before. it's different for everyone. some people would rather be alone. i thought you would be one of those, so i usually went to the other bedroom."

kevin is amazed at how he can talk so much and so clearly when he himself has only the vaguest grasp of language right now. 

"my brother is," andrew continues. "he hates talking to anyone when he can't sleep." 

"to be fair, aaron hates most things." 

he grasps the moment the corner of andrew's lips go up in what they have started to consider the closest andrew gets to laughter. it gives his sleepy heart a little jolt of pleasure. and then, for some reason, he keeps talking. "riko," he starts, yawns. "riko needed company, i think." 

"mm," andrew hums, sounding like he doesn't care much, either to get angry or to feel sympathetic. he's just listening. "tell me." 

"he had that old insomniac thing - the closer it got to bedtime, the more anxious he got, so i had to distract him. he hated sleeping pills, so those were only used when he really needed to. we usually slept in the same bed, but when we didn't, he - came to mine. asked me to hold him. he didn't sleep either way, but he relaxed." 

"doesn't surprise me. he came off as rather touch-starved."

"much like neil," kevin says, and immediately regrets it, because he doesn't want to compare riko to neil, not in a million years, but andrew, once more, doesn't look like he cares. 

"indeed. it's good to have you around - he sleeps better when he has someone to hold on to."

kevin swallows dry, saves that little note of appreciation at the back of his brain where he keeps the important things. "doesn't he ever notice when we leave the bed?" 

andrew's eyes look strangely bright, reflecting the yellow lamp above them. "not always. he's a heavier sleeper than he thinks he is. but even when he does - if one of us comes back a little while later, he's...soothed. still - leave the door a bit open and the hallway light on - it's a reassurance for him."

kevin is struck by the realization of how fragile the three of them are, how easy to break still. he remembers the way andrew used to smile, manic as a knife wound, drugged up to high heaven; the way neil fidgeted, looked around for emergency exits. he remembers the nights in which riko managed to sleep only to wake up from a nightmare, his pillow wet with tears he'd shed unconsciously. 

earlier that night, he'd received a text from jeremy knox: a picture of him, smiling like a star, and jean, the sun shining behind them, jean as serious as ever but with an arm around jeremy's waist. 

he wonders if jean has insomnia too, or if he's catching up on all the sleep he lost at riko's hands. 

"i miss him," kevin says. "them. i miss them." 

andrew hums again, lets the cigarette fall to the street under them. "i know." it sounds soothing, coming from him. "i'm going back to bed."

"okay. good night, andrew." 

on his way out of the balcony, andrew's fingers trace his shoulder, a silent  _ goodnight.  _

kevin thinks of all the nights he will have to get through that will be exactly like this.  _ one doesn't know how many hours there are in a night until they can't sleep through one _ , he thinks, and scoffs at his awful attempts at making things sound pretty. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cant sleep so now kevin cant sleep either  
> i usually project all my issues on riko but riko's dead on this so kevin gets the issues now

**Author's Note:**

> listen  
> i  
> dont know


End file.
